Despite not ending up as butchered as the other lower tiers, UU felt the beginning of a new subgen, the creation of new tiers and the extension of a changes cycle. The ORAS megas that took our tier by storm in the last 3 months have been banned, and we find ourselves giving some more attention to old residents and some OU rejects that ended up losing shine with the arrival of ORAS.

Very mixed pokemon entered UU. We have core walls, bouncers, mixed stallbreakers, SR setters, scarf sweepers, but one thing stands very noticeably: Pinsir. I'm certain this will be a top-tier threat in our tier and i would like to know your experiences trying it out, among all the other new toys.
I put the UU dropouts and the LU rises under spoilers to not make the list too long, and so players can still have a general idea of what LU and NU pokemon had some hidden potential in our tier!

I'm really glad that the Eeveelutions, Infernape, Blissey, and Togekiss dropped. IMO they should have dropped a long time ago (I think Ape and Umbreon had but rose for whatever reason). Infernape will no doubt be a top-tier threat, Blissey and Umbreon will compete with each other and Florges, and I'm not sure what's going to happen with Espeon and Togekiss, but I'm pretty sure they both won't be broken nor underwhelming.

As for the others:
Heracross: Lots of competition from other fighting types like before, and now Pinsir. Probably going to be a niche poke.

Medicham: Useless without its stone. May someday find a home in LU or NU, but as of now it's not really worth using.

Terrakion: Solid as always.

Pinsir: Unresisted coverage with STAB Return and CC/EQ, massive attack, swords dance, and boosted STAB priority. This thing will end up like its fellow bugs Scolipede, Volc, and Mega Hera and get the banhammer.

It's nice to see that Infernape has finally dropped. I'm not a fan of Serene Grace Flinch, so shame that Togekiss dropped lol. Heracross will probably be outclassed by other fighters that have dropped.

- Terrakion: Fast Taunt+Rocks/Choice Set/Sub+SD. Nice as usual.

- Umbreon/Blissey: Great Support which checks threats such as Nidoking.

- Espeon: Dual Screens+GeoHerb Smeargle and BP to Espeon might be more dangerous then I've expected. Let's see how this works out for now.

- Pinsir: Excellent UU sweeper at the moment! Even though we're still in this test fase, It would be nice if we can support a quick Suspect Discussion for him seeing as he looks very unhealthy for our meta game.

Honestly, I made this account right now just to voice how unhealthy Pinsir is for the metagame.

A lot of UU people know me as that one guy who still plays UU stall, but also a person who is very militant when it comes to broken 'mons and strategies in the tier. Having been a Showdown user for a long time, I was obviously surprised to see so many threats make their home in UU when I first arrived, and even though I've complained, I've somehow always managed my way to a very good ranking (consistently top 10) on the ladder.

However, I have to step up this time for real and say that Pinsir, or at least Pinsirite, needs a Quick Ban from the tier. It has stupidly amazing wallbreaking power at very little cost of sweeping potential since it actually has one of the best speed tiers for UU pokes, outspeeding the Nidos, Entei, Hydreigon, Krook, etc. Quick Attack also ensures that it's not deadweight against Heavy Offense either, making sure frailer or weakened pokemon that could've revenge killed it can't.

And, to be candid, I actually wasn't considering Quick Banning Pinsir (though eventually banning it) because I had thought I made a good team that could finally take it on, using a combination of Solrock as the main switch in (since it's the only Bird Check in UU that has reliable recovery) and then Doublade as my back up. Pinsir's one-dimensionality in terms of coverage hurts it here...until one person who I had consistently faced adapted to my team and OHKO'ed Sol with Knock Off. This just goes to show how, defensively, nothing is safe from this guy; even Rhyperior falls from Close Combat, switch, then +2 Close Combat.

Three of Pinsir's best checks and counters are locked away in OU as well, being Skarm, Zapdos, and Talonflame. Our own little phoenix doesn't even reliably OHKO pinsir. While at +2, Pinsir outspeeds and KO's Fletchinder with quick attack...How lame is that?

I really don't want to hear people say "just uze Stealth Rockz, easy win hur" because against most teams, Pinsir only needs one switch in to sweep. Not to mention UU has some of the best Rapid Spin and Defog supporters.

It does have checks like every 'mon in various electric types like Raikou or Terrakion (don't get me started on the latter, and if you're claiming having something broken checked by something else broken is healthy...then *clap* *clap*). Even then, it's pretty easy to kill every single mon surrounding your check with Pinsir since it literally 2HKOes most of the tier unboosted anyway.

Pinsir just makes playing in UU just absolutely unbearable.

I don't know how else I convince other people or the tier leaders here other than saying that Smogon recently let Pinsir drop down to UU from usage as well. They had the good sense to quick ban it.

Quick Ban Pinsir/Pinsirite

Other 'mons aren't too bad, though I can definitely make a case for Terrakion being banned and possibly Togekiss (once people start using NastyPass...shivers).

Umbreon and Heracross are the true saviors for the UU tier though, and I can't wait to use the latter on my balanced team.

After discussing with the Tier Leaders and Tier Admin, we've decided that Pinsirite should be banned from ORAS UU. The pressure it exerts, along with needing minimal support that comes in the form of defogging, which is already used on most teams, above average defenses and perfect coverage, makes it reduce its switch-ins to Rhyperior and Mega Aggron, the former being unable to beat it in a 1v1, but crippling it a lot. Checking it with a faster pokemon that can resist Quick Attack/Feint (Raikou at over 21% usage) or a Scarfer (Terrakion at 23% usage) is one of the most common answers, but it's not very reliable since you'd have to sac something for a safe switch-in. Right now, in the beginning of a tier shift, it's not allowing for other pokemon to assert themselves.

I think terrakion deserves a suspect. Very few things can switch into its stabs, its fast, and the sd LO set just demolishes evrything (unless you're using doublade). I think its unhealthy for the meta and is deserving of a suspect, but I'm curious to know what other players think of it atm.

which actually brings me to the next point. Unlike Mega Pinsir, Terrakion actually has multiple options, all of which are fairly viable and effective against most or all teams. Let's say, I just KO'ed a pokemon with Standard Scarf Salamence using Earthquake and my opponent brings in Terrakion. He could be bluffing a Choice Scarf and easily Revenge Kill me, but I decide to switch out to my Milotic just to be safe.

Player decisions aside, Terrakion just has way too many options that places too much pressure on team-building to prepare for all of its sets. Tanky walls are busted down by Swords Dance sets, Offensive teams are blown back by Salac/Rock Polish/Scarf sets, balanced teams are ravaged by Choice Band/LO sets...and it nicely puts up Stealth Rock along the way if you need it to.

Ok well, let's revenge kill Terrakion? Problem is, too bad there isn't a Scarfer in UU that's actually faster than it if you're talking Scarved Terrakion, and then just its regular Base Speed is trouble enough. You can always use Aqua Jet Crawdaunt!...wait, that's broken too (let's see where our next suspect goes, eh?)

I'll concede, Terrakion does have its shares of checks, many more so than Mega Pinsir at least. Its defensive typing is average as well, not allowing it to set up in front of the multitude of Ground, Steel, and Water pokes in UU. But it actually has the stats to tank at least one hit, and one boosting move is usually all it needs to do work. Not to mention it can actually come in multiple times throughout the match after some of its checks have been worn, unlike M-pinsir, because it resists Stealth Rock, meaning Terrakion needs minimal support to work.

Doublade is its one true counter (though, lol it gets worn down by Choice Band Earthquake without Rest or Wish support), but one Pokemon out of a plethora should not be reason for this monster to stay.

With the loss of Solid Checks like Mew/Slowbro I feel he might be a little overwhelming for the Current Meta.
Not that I'm 100% convinced that he's Broken, but I do see some sets (Mainly the SD LO Set/CB) being very strong when he's got a free switch.
The other sets doesn't really concern me at the moment, perhaps the Scarf Set being strong vs Offense.

i agree with a terrakion suspect based off the previous posts, but can we also please take a look at mega alakazam/togekiss/crawdaunt/weavile?

mega alakazam is probably the single most stupid mon in the tier. not only does it have blazing speed that allows it to outspeed just about every mon that isn't a choice scarier, it also literally 2HKO's the entire tier. like just look at this calc: 252+ SpA Mega Alakazam Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Jirachi: 174-206 (43 - 50.9%) -- 3.1% chance to 2HKO after Stealth Rock and Leftovers recovery. cm psyhock/focus blast/shadow ball has nothing even resembling a counter in the tier so please get it out of here please and thank you.

togekiss actually has 2 very good counters in the tier in jirachi and raikou but after that it ends. it's exaggerated a little bit but almost the entire tier loses to toge outside of those 2 mons. nasty plot + air slash is just nasty and between its combination of great bulk and decent speed (not to mention a fantastic typing) it's just one of those mons that makes uu anything but fun to play atm.

crawdaunt and weavile go together because my opinion on them isn't quite as strong but they really fucking suck too. knock off is a rather dumb move as it is but coming from those mons it's gonna hurt a lot too no matter what mon you switch in. they've both got a nice second stab to do heaps of damage to the rare mons that don't mind knock off too much. access to sd just makes matters a lot worse. they've both got flaws however; weavile is rather frail and doesn't hit as hard while bulky water types can put a stop to it. crawdaunt is slow and has to rely on aqua jet too much but it does incredibly damage and bulky water types generally only have a 30% chance to not get blasted straight out of the water by it (yay scald).

I agree with what was said above: terrakion/megazam/weavile/crawdaunt/togekiss are all suspect worthy, but now I'd like to draw your attention towards chandelure, I mean what do you think about this threat? the specs set is surely the most threatening one, but let's give a look on some calcs:

so yeah I'd like to see some opinions about this pokemon, it's not like I think it should be banned, but I think it deserves at least some words to be spent about it. And oh I'm also trying to revive this topic too '-'

The only reason why I would be against a Chandelure ban/suspect is that it does have fairly common checks and counters that aren't taken into account when a general UU battler builds a team. The reason is that Dark is such a potent type in UU since there is a lack of resists in the tier, so things like Hydreigon and Crawdaunt litter the tier.

Its most crippling flaw is, of course, its speed, which sits at an uncomfortable 80, letting things like basic offensive pokemon likeNidoking, Krookodile, Heracross (Knock Off/Stone Edge) outspeed it. That's why most players automatically slap on a Scarf on it and call it a day, and while I'm not arguing that Scarf is a bad set for Lure, I do say that that is the reason why people don't seem as scared of it when teambuilding; its nuking prowess isn't achieved with a Scarf set.

Now, if you're looking at its other sets, LO and Specs as the next common ones, they're pretty terrifying for balanced teams, as the above calc shows. The trouble is that unlike UU's premier slow wallbreaker, Crawdaunt, it doesn't have a way to fix its speed when it needs to. So there's an awkward exchange between speed and power, and so people, again, don't really feel the need to be scared of Lure that much.

It also doesn't have that great of switching power, granted with a weakness to Rocks, which means it needs more support if you need it to come in and out. And then come in on what? You can come in on Florges, who can tank at least a Shadow Ball and lower your damage with Moonblast procs....and that's kind of it. Even Forretress can take advantage of an obvious Lure by Volt Switching out. Switching in Chandelure is probably the number one reason why its Nuke sets aren't that popular. It's just too hard with a tier filled with Bulky Waters, Grounds, Fast Darks, and pretty much Fast everything.

I love SubCM Chandy though and its pretty underrated. Lots of stall teams are unprepared for it since them can't just absorb hits, and lefties helps mitigate switch-in damage. Bulky Waters without Haze also can't kill you as easily now so that's cool. Also makes a cool Fire/Fighting absorber for your team.

It's definitely a good pokemon, more or less on paper, but it's kind of hard to use in this meta. You can't really slap it on a team and say, "go break shit" like Craw, but its power is still frightening, especially if your opponent just relies on a weaker bulky water to check fire types.

I'm not expert in english so don't expect walls of text, and I'm not going to post calcs or something so whatever. ;/

Omitting the fact that I don't play PO tier, I find this one so chaotic due to the presence of stuff like Crawdaunt / Mega Alakazam / Togekiss / Terrakion which takes away the fun. All these mons mentioned kinda force to play in a more offensive way because if you try to play Balanced/Stall you are more likely going to lose to the first TWave+AirSlash Togekiss you find. Crawdaunt is something incredible, thanks to Sash it can always find a chance to setup and this allows it to deal absurde damages on everything not named Chesnaught/Toxicroak/Whimsicott and well maybe also Celebi/Roserade but they can't offer the same solidity of previously mentioned ones. I agree at all with MasterLordZoroark about what he said on Mega Alakazam even though it should run Timid nature to avoid MegaBeedrill revengekill.. Terrakion only needs to dance once then spams STABS.
There should be other mons that I think they deserve to go but it's already enough if you can balance the current tier which is, in my opinion, "disastrous".

I don't want to rush anybody or make it sound like I'm whiny, but how long is it going to take to take to get an actual suspect going? In my opinion, some of the above pokemon are already quick ban worthy, based on past suspect tests and such.

Don't want to make it sound like I hate the tier or anything (I don't, I've played most of my battles in it), but I agree with Decision Makers that this tier is basically "disastrous."

Um, yea. My two cents on UU: Terrakion is the mon mentioned above that would deserve a suspect most, but: SD sets are too slow (lol, base 108), making it vulnerable: Terrakion is by no means bulky enough to live Weavile, Crawdaunt, (Mega) Zam, Serperior, Mega Aerodactyl or all the other fun stuff that might just KO if Terrakion has taken some damage, whereas the scarf set simply does not have enough power for Terrakion to not be destroyed by Donphan, Forretress (these two also get SD sets well) or even, what the hell, Florges, maybe Swampert, etc, etc, blah blah. Please don't bother trying to destroy my opinion, you can do that if a suspect ever happens. By the way, looking at OU ranked stats, it looks like Mew will drop. There's another check for you.

If you want something that is broken in my eyes, look at Serperior: Outspeeding lots of stuff with 357 speed and the good ol 130 base power STAB Nasty Plot, it doesn't really care about most Scarfers bar Darmanitan due to its bulk, doesn't care about the occasional Twave because it can run Taunt and/or Sub, has recovery (Giga Drain), decent coverage (Dpulse and a Hidden Power, preferrably Ground, can run SubSeed to support it's own pwrful setup, and is in general too damn unpredictable in the current metagame. The only things that reliably get it (iirc....it's late) are (Sash?) Weavile, Mega Dactyl, and Scarf Darmanitan. Looking at stats again, it might just rise, but the thing still f***s up every damn team I try to build, w/ all the diff sets it runs. Juuust saying, I'll make better arguments in a suspect post, should it ever happen for any of the mentioned pokes.

Its funny because I really think this tier is cancerous however Im not really sure where to start because it feels like so many things are so powerful they all cancel each other out. I spent alot of time laddering the last few days to try to get a feel for this meta and it seems like 9/10 teams Im running into are hyper offense.

Imo Serperior isnt broken enough things to answer it that are common in the tier. Rachi/Toge/Chandy/Tini/Crobat/MBeedrill/Alakazam are all decent answers that can fit pretty much any team not to mention its bulk is less than desirable and gets weared down quickly by priority and LO recoil. Id go into more details in a suspect but I really dont feel it is too much for this tier.

Id support a suspect of Terrak although I feel like it has some decent answers, but Id really just like to hear something from the tier leaders on what the future of this tier will look like. The NU tier has been cleaned up nicely and Celestial Phantom has done a great job laying out their plans for the LU tier but we have heard nothing here in UU. Not trying to bitch but I feel there should be at least some communication. If TLs dont feel there are enough valid points here to start a suspect at least say that instead of silence.

So I left for like 4 months cuz the tier was aids and nothing was getting done about it, and I come back and the only shit that got banned was like 3 mons that were gnna rise anyway cuz of usage. These have to be hands down the laziest TLs on PO, we've literally been bitching about MegaZam since the September+October thread. I see that you guys dropped meeps and picked up Soop (aka Just Do It) who is extremely active on both the ladder and on PO so that's a very good step and seeing a Terrak suspect go up the day he got TL gives us some hope.

Obvious suspects right now imo are Togekiss, Crawdaunt and MegaZam (Serperior too but I think these 3 are more important).

Crawdaunt was suspected before and the result was no-ban because of really, really poor anti-ban arguments, and I'm not just saying this because I was pro-ban but if your arguments literally boil down to "It can't come in a lot vs stuff" (which applies to almost any offensive mon in the game; very vague and poor argument), and "it's slow dood" ignoring the absurd power of Adaptability Banded, LO, or +2 Aqua Jet and the fact that sash Daunt is extremely common, then it comes out as no-ban then yea I'd get pretty salty. This cancer literally has like 2 counters, one of which (Chesnaught) is not common at all and has no recovery aside from Synthesis which it never uses, and the other (Mega Aggron) also has no recovery and takes like 45% from banded Crabhammer, it gets cleanly 2HKOed by Sash SD at +2. It also has 2 shaky and unreliable checks in Hydreigon and Mega Blastoise. Standard MBlast takes like 55% from Banded Knock Off from Crawd, and Hydreigon takes like 60% meaning they can both only switch in to Crawd once and attempt to scare it off. But oh you can just pair this aids with the very common partner Florges, there you go both your primary checks are handled. This shit does work vs offense (Sash SD, Banded AJ is also annoying, also it can come in on HO spinners like Forre) and vs balanced and the non-existant stall with Banded, SD, LO, etc. This needed to go a long time ago, one of the most centralizing mons when it comes to building because your limited to such shit choices for counters which is why HO is 90% of the ladder, fuck spending 3 hours trying to build a team to attempt to handle all these 1-2 counter mons like MZam and Daunt, I'll just throw threats together.

Do I even need to go into Togekiss? I don't want to sound redundant at this point, I think the above posts covered most of it.

MegaZam, another one that I don't even think I need to go into. I'll just repost Byte's post from fucking September, nothing has changed since then because Zam has recieved no new checks or counters. Speaking of which the shit has no counters. Snorlax, Pory-2, Florges, all smashed. Anyway here's the post and if you go to that thread you'll see the following posts all supporting a Zam suspect..k I'm done ranting about the lack of TL activity.

a pokemon i feel needs to be brought up is mega alakazam/alakazite. a lot of people think that normal alakazam is better than its mega simply because it can abuse magic guard + focus sash allowing it to function as a check to a lot of pokemon. however, mega zam is more of a wall breaker which makes it more threatening to balance/stall while still being able to threaten offense even without a sash due to its high speed. mega zam loses magic guard (post mega-evo) and focus sash as its forced to run alakazite. it gains 30 base speed making it reach base 150 (399 speed), allowing it to outspeed anything in the tier that isn't scarfed (or speed boost + protect). it gains 40 base spatk giving it an absurd base 175 spatk (493 spatk). lastly it gains 20 base defense making it reach base 65, which may sound meaningless as 55/65 bulk is still bad, however it does allow mega zam to take priority hits better, notably crawdaunt's cb aqua jet which doesn't ohko at 100%. it also gets the ability trace isn't providing any use most of the time, only useful against certain pokemon, notably thundurus-t which gives you volt absorb which provides an immunity to electric which is nice. it also helps vs other things like sheer force nidoking, analytic magnezone, adaptability crawdaunt, etc. the first that comes to mind when using mega zam is that its no longer outsped by weavile, which is great as it can only go for ice shard doing around 50%-55%. and its disadvantage is that its revenge killed by any scarfer faster than chandelure as it can't use a sash. lets get onto the set it runs:

this is mega zam's best set, you don't really see anything else, just encore over calm mind. psychic is obviously its stab attack, which is almost always used over psyshock as it can hits things harder such as blastoise, zygarde, defensive mence/arcanine etc. psyshock hits a few things harder than psychic such as florges/snorlax/machamp/goodra, however snorlax and goodra aren't so common, and alakazam deals a lot of damage to machamp w/ psychic and sets up calm mind vs florges and goodra, and focus blast hits snorlax so psychic is generally a better option over psyshock. shadow ball is an important coverage move to hit mainly psychic types and chandelure, can also deal a good amount of damage to magnezone if its lacking focus blast. dazzling gleam hits dark types like weavile/crawdaunt/hydreigon/sableye, while focus blast also hits them (barring sableye), it also hits steel types like magnezone/mega aggron/empoleon. however from my experience, dazzling gleam seems to be the better option (if you have a fighting/fire/ground type) as you're not taking the risk whenever you want to take out a dark type. calm mind is used mainly to prevent florges from walling you, psychic is a guaranteed 2hko after 1 cm which is nice. encore can be used to stop crocune from doing anything, also helpful vs other things that like to set use stealth rock/substitute/defog/recovery etc. time to post some calcs to demonstrate its power/bulk (left out the obvious ones):
standard florges:
0 SpA Florges Moonblast vs. +1 4 HP / 0 SpD Mega Alakazam: 79-94 (31.3 - 37.3%) -- 83.5% chance to 3HKO

spdef mew:
252+ SpA Mega Alakazam Shadow Ball vs. 252 HP / 252+ SpD Mew: 174-206 (43 - 50.9%) -- guaranteed 3HKO after Leftovers recovery (mew loses 1v1 even if it has knock off as zam can take 1 and get off a cm and finish it w/ the next shadow ball)

as the calcs have shown, mega zam can 2hko almost the whole tier, and zam can set up at least 1 cm against anything that isn't. only exceptions are coil zygarde and av snorlax, zygarde can kill zam with 2 earthquakes (has a chance with earthquake + espeed) while still surviving 2 psychics/dazzling gleams if its at full health, and snorlax can take 1 focus blast and can ohko with return/crunch however both cannot many hits as they both don't have reliable recovery. the only solid counter in the tier is av escavalier as it can take any hit easily and trap it with pursuit, however esca doesn't counter much else which is why it has low usage, it only checks a couple of mons. spdef mega aggron / empoleon / umbreon and snorlax are counters if mega zam lacks focus blast.

mega zam appreciates teammates who can deal with scarfers/steel types. banded weavile works well as it can check common scarfers like victini/salamence/hydreigon/staraptor and can also trap victini with pursuit (also can others with prediction). fighting types such as banded terrakion deal with steels/umbreon/snorlax well so they form good synergy with mega zam. so yea i feel that mega zam is a potential suspect, and id like to hear other people's opinion on this.

I find it funny that people complain about tier leaders doing nothing when the thread only has 16 posts in the past month and ~20 days. Obviously we either don't have the user base to actually motivate tier leaders to do anything or people actually need to generate discussions themselves instead of relying on the tier leaders to automatically suspect everything.

All that said, taking 2 weeks for anyone to post anything after the Pinsirite ban is really telling about our users, honestly. Sometimes you have to take the initiative and discuss among yourselves so the leaders can actually be motivated and work towards making the tier better.

I dnno why you're bothering trying to defend their lack of activity when it's so blatantly obvious that other people posted about it, when even in the September thread Byte's MegaZam post got like 8 likes and follow up posts agreed and not only did we not get a suspect, none of the leaders even posted anything on the subject barring Jey who posted something the same day he got UUTL (probably cuz he was excited bout bein uutl lol) basically saying he agreed Zam is suspect worthy, and still no suspect.
Whereas if you look at LU, Aurist regularly posts in the potential suspect thread, even now with posts like "I can see why you guys think etc etc", and posts of that ilk. Same thing goes for Weavile and his fellow TLs doing an excellent job cleaning up the tier. Why do you think UU which has a larger playerbase than both LU and NU has the fewest amount of people posting of any tier?

You say we should discuss more but why would people feel motivated to post when 5 months of bitching about a mon (MZam) goes unanswered, speaking personally I stopped giving a shit because I figured the TLs didn't give a shit.

That's all in the past now anyway (hopefully), Superior getting TL gave me some hope cuz I know him and I know how active he is. Idk what Jey's doing cuz I'm pretty sure that man's been dead for 12 years or spends most his time on PS, but maybe Sup and IS can manage the tier well. Inactive TLs need to be replaced so people feel motivated to post and they don't feel like their bitching falls on deaf ears.

Well, I'll try to do my best with the other TL's to keep you guys informed about the Potential Suspects that we have in mind.

Right now we've got Terrakion suspected which is a great start. We were also thinking about Serperior seeing as a 113 Speed & 130 Stab with nasty plot boosts is reuning everything not named Crobat/Togekiss (and some scarfers which can take a Leaf Storm), but since he's rising to OU next month it might not be necessary.

Personally I have my eyes set on M Alakazam/Crawdaunt and probably Togekiss as well, but I'd have to discuss this with both Insane Soul & JeyTheGrey if we can manage to get another suspect up before this month ends (seeing as strong mons such as Mamoswine/M Manectric are going to drop to UU in April).

If you have other suggestions, please feel free to post something here and I will get to it.